PFRG: Chapter 57

The ghost who had just crawled out of the wall: “?”

Their first reaction was to stretch out their other hand and attack directly. However, the next second, they were once again tightly caught.

These hands were such a pair of slender and delicate looking hands. The ghost didn’t know where such terrifying power came from. No matter how hard they struggled, the ghost couldn’t break free from the beads.

The ghost: “……” Sh*t?

This was clearly a situation they never envisioned before taking action tonight.

The initial expectation to mess up the player was long gone. It gradually turned into a strong uneasiness that came from the subconscious.

For a moment, the ghost’s struggling movements became more panicked. The nails of their hands suddenly stretched out and tried to grab Chi Ting. However, they were pulled by a force that was too powerful to resist.

The ghost was abruptly pulled out of the wall by Chi Ting and pressed on the bed.

At the same time, in Chi Ting’s live stream room, the screen was almost completely covered by the words ‘It is terrible.’

Due to the development during the day, everyone went out early to collect points for a while. Then they waited on time to watch the show. They never expected to see such a wonderful and exciting scene as soon as they came in.

[Strong, strong, strong! He is really too strong! It wasn’t in vain that I just cursed about spending such a huge amount of money. It is too cool!]

[Hurry, turn on the lights. Quickly turn on the lights. I want to see what this ghost is.]

[Hahahaha, I seem to hear the crazy cursing in this ghost’s heart. The silence is almost deafening.]

[A player from the new area? The fighting power is simply incredible. No wonder why he was so determined to see a ghost. It just isn’t known if killing the ghost here counts as passing the instance.]

[…Since it is a ghost, it should be dead. How can it die?]

[I’m really grateful that I enjoyed it. I will save this live stream room. It is so frustrating to survive in the instance. I can decompress by spending points. I admit it!]

[I’m laughing to death. Isn’t this position reversed? This is my first time seeing it. Who is the ghost?]

In the instance, the ghost still wanted to run away.

Chi Ting was just about to turn around and turn on the light. Then he noticed a movement and caught the ghost trying to crawl out again.

Seeing the sharp nails that were about to cut him, he frowned with extreme dissatisfaction at such a reaction. He directly pulled out a string of beads to tie the ghost’s hands together. He tightened and dragged the ghost in the direction of the bedside table.

The series of movements were so neat and smooth that even the ghost couldn’t react. The lights in the room turned on again with a popping sound.

Chi Ting looked back and finally saw the face he had been thinking about for so long.

At this moment, he was rarely stunned.

Obviously, the ghost was also stunned.

After a while, the ghost seemed to come back to their senses. The facial features exposed to the light finally shifted in a distorted manner.

In the end, a really strange face was pieced together.

The ghost slowly opened their mouth, showing jagged teeth. However, it only took a moment for the ghost’s whole body to sink deeply into the ground without warning.

Of course, Chi Ting didn’t want this ghost to run away. He pulled the beads with a sudden force.

He originally wanted to pull the ghost out of the ground again. Then the next second, he heard the faint sound of bones breaking. The entire ghost completely disappeared into the ground, leaving only the two hands still tied up in the beads because they couldn’t break free.

The tearing process was so simple that he could still faintly see the muscles and bones connected to the severed hands without any blood flowing out. There was still flesh and skin struggling faintly around the visibly white bones. Finally, they were completely still as if they had lost all life. The hands completely turned into dead things and didn’t move again.

Chi Ting: “……”

The ghost actually cut off their hands to survive. Was the ghost a gecko?

He took back the beads and looked at the two severed hands on the ground. A hint of disgust finally showed on his face.

He got up and went straight to the bathroom. He found a piece of soap and started to rinse his precious bone beads one by one.

In this whole seemingly natural process, the barrage in the live stream room completely exploded the moment the lights were turned on.

Some players with a good force value had tried to have a head-on collision with ghosts before, but the ghosts were too flexible and could escape through walls. They basically couldn’t gain much benefits after a few rounds of confrontation. It was the first time a ghost had been crushed so thoroughly by Chi Ting.

Due to this, the audience in the live stream room could clearly and directly capture the face of the ghost. It was an extremely rare opportunity to see the face of a ghost.

Yes, the face!

Unlike a patchwork of various facial features, the moment the lights turned on, they directly saw a face that was difficult to describe in words. Rather, it was a face that didn’t seem to exist in reality at all.

F*k, what was that just now?]

[[Is that a human face? Was it because I was dazzled in the first half?]

[I’m not saying this easily, but this is the first time I’ve seen such an abstract ghost.]

[No matter how I look at this thing, it looks like…]

Just as the barrage was scrolling crazily, the audience heard Chi Ting murmur something that summed up their feelings. “Is it… graffiti?”

Chi Ting was obviously pondering on this question as well.

He meticulously cleaned the bone beads while thinking with a slight frown.

He had been standing in front of the ghost when the lights turned on. The moment the surroundings lit up, the rare emotion of shock was entirely due to the facial features that could be called completely unorganized.

It was very rough and perfunctory, with a strong childishness. It was like the facial features had been sketched out by a brush on a blank face.

However, by chance, Chi Ting happened to see this flat face that was undoubtedly very strange in reality. It was the graffiti on the wall that needed to be cleaned when the task in the child’s room was commissioned.

The little girl drew it.

Thinking about it carefully, it seemed that only children could have such childish and crude brushstrokes.

As for the new facial features that gradually appeared on the face to replace the graffiti, Chi Ting saw Yu Gao’s eyebrows and Tan Haobo’s mouth. What he couldn’t distinguish for a moment were the ears and nose that might belong to other people. These parts from different people were gradually moved to their final positions. A brand new face was pieced together that was full of contradictions and weirdness.

After thoroughly disinfecting the beads, he walked out of the bedroom. Chi Ting glanced at the two hands that were on the ground, thought about it, and finally didn’t move them.

He just walked around the hands.

He had finally seen the ghost he longed for and successfully touched the ghost. Chi Ting lay down on the bed with satisfaction. Just as he was about to get a good sleep, he vaguely heard a few rough screams in the distance.

He closed his eyes calmly.

He didn’t know if it was the same ghost who would go to Dong Zai. If it was the same ghost, wouldn’t this mean the ghost couldn’t use their hands to scare Dong Zai?

Oh no, the ghost would look scary without hands…

The scattered and boring thoughts flashed through his mind as Chi Ting quickly fell into a deep sleep.

He seemed to fall asleep very quickly, but he soon woke up when there was faint movement outside.

He pushed open the door and looked outside. He happened to see other players waking up one after another. Chi Ting called out to them from afar, motioning for them to wait in the corridor. Then he went back to the room.

He briefly washed up and returned to the group again.

At this time, everyone, including Yue Ren, was already present. Once Chi Ting appeared, all eyes fell on him.

Chi Ting’s refreshed appearance formed a sharp contrast with Dong Zai, whose dark circles were obviously thicker.

As she was waiting, Tu Shuhuai already learned from Wen Weng that it was Chi Ting who asked for the handkerchief last night. At this time, she got straight to the point. “Why are you looking for us? Did you find any clues?”

“Yes.” Chi Ting didn’t expect that when he woke up, he would find that the two hands on the ground had turned into blood. He was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t let everyone analyze the content of the ghost hands together. He gestured to everyone. “Everyone, please roll up your sleeves first.”

The players exchanged looks with each other. It was strange, but they all followed his orders.

Chi Ting observed the changes in everyone’s demeanor from beginning to end but didn’t capture any unusual emotions.

He raised an eyebrow slightly. Then he started with Fei Ying and examined them one by one.

Even if cutting off their hands decisively was the ghost’s means of survival, before that, Chi Ting had clearly used his fingers to pinch several obvious flesh holes when he restrained the ghost. Logically speaking, it must’ve left some traces.

Now it seemed that none of these players’ hands had any wounds. Forget severed bones and flesh. Not even the marks left by the beads could be found.

The more he looked, the more expressionless Chi Ting’s face became. Once he finished inspecting the final Yue Ren, he heard a voice that seemed to contain a smile that wasn’t a smile. “It seems that yesterday’s mark wasn’t stacked in vain?”

Chi Ting looked up, glanced at the man and didn’t deny it. “That’s right.”

This statement attracted others to look over.

Fei Ying looked at her hand repeatedly in a puzzled manner. “So what are you looking at?”

Dong Zai’s expression was subtle from beginning to end. It was only at this time that he said in a deep voice, “He is looking for wounds. When that ghost came to me yesterday, both hands were severed…”

At this moment, he looked at Chi Ting with a vaguely complicated expression. His usually arrogant tone was much more restrained. “So you did it?”

These words came out and everyone else realized the meaning. Their expressions changed slightly and they couldn’t help gasping.

Severing the ghost’s hands?

Was this a combat power that ordinary people could have?

Tu Shuhuai was the first to come to her senses. “However, it seems that no one among us have severed hands, right?”

“Yes and no.” Chi Ting nodded. “This is why I said that yesterday’s jealousy mark isn’t in vain.”

He looked around at the others and said slowly, “Since the night when Yu Gao was thrown out, I’ve always had some speculations. It isn’t possible to directly determine the ghost, but in a way, it can be regarded as verifying some things.”

Tu Shuhuai wondered, “What speculation?”

“The current situation is that both of the ghost’s hands were obviously severed, but all the players are unscathed. Why is this? There are two possibilities.”

Chi Ting’s voice floated slowly in the narrow space of the corridor, falling into everyone’s ears word by word. “The first one is that the ghosts aren’t among us. Of course, judging from the rules, this obviously isn’t the case. So it must be the second one. In other words, the ghost is indeed among us, but what we see isn’t what they look like.”

Hearing this, Yue Ren gave a low chuckle. He obviously already knew what Chi Ting was going to say next. “It looks like we have guessed it from the beginning.”

Wen Weng couldn’t understand it for a moment. “What do you mean?”

Fei Ying was also at a loss. She was about to ask a question but suddenly noticed something. She looked up and saw the petite figure in front of the door leading to the meeting room at the end of the corridor. She immediately fell silent.

Obviously, the rabbit came over to ‘invite’ them very impatiently because they hadn’t showed up.

Yue Ren glanced at the rabbit in an aware manner. Then he immediately withdrew his gaze and waved his hand indifferently. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about that rabbit and continue.”

The rabbit gentleman: “……”

From such a distance, he obviously heard such a harmless but extremely insulting statement. Even so, he couldn’t do anything about it.

After being a game host for so long, this was the first time he felt so frustrated.

It was just that he didn’t dare go over there because the player had such an expression!

Fei Ying paid close attention for a long time and saw that the rabbit actually stayed where he was. She looked at Yue Ren with a vague expression of admiration and continued to shift her attention back to Chi Ting.

Chi Ting noticed that Yue Ren had blocked the rabbit gentleman, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The corners of his lips curved up, and he continued in an unhurried manner, “Don’t you think it is very strange from the beginning? There is a ghost, but every player’s description is perfect. If an emergency occurs, everyone can show the corresponding shock and fear. There are always no flaws. It is okay once or twice, but they are able to react appropriately every time. Even before Yu Gao was thrown out, he acted as if he was unknowing and frightened. No matter how you look at it, the acting skills of these ghosts are too good, right?”

The other players listened to him quietly while still warily watching the incompetent and furious rabbit gentleman who stayed at the door.

In the midst of their anxiety and surprise, there was also a hint of secret pleasure. They had never experienced this type of thing before. The NPC looked at them in a crazy and unpleasant manner, but didn’t dare to say anything.

Chi Ting faced the rabbit’s resentful look, and his expression became even calmer. “In fact, Yu Gao gave me a very strange feeling at that time. The way he looked at me after breaking the jar was completely different from usual. In addition, there was the group usage of the points mall to purchase items before. I had a vague idea. Now that idea has finally been confirmed.”

“There are ghosts all around us.”

The corners of Chi Ting’s mouth curved even further as he gave his final conclusion. “Each of us have indeed entered an instance as a player. However, the ‘ghosts’ mixed among us might be the players from the previous version of this instance or even several previous versions. It is just that they have lost the memory of that period and think that they are still clearly a new instance normally. They can use the points mall in a natural manner and actively look for ways to clear the level. They will be afraid and frightened. Naturally, we can’t find any flaws no matter how we observe them. It is because it is only when it is necessary that the real ghost will deprive that player of their autonomous consciousness and appear in the player’s place.”

This calm voice entered everyone’s ears. At this moment, everyone felt a chill go down their spines.

“What do you mean?’ Fei Ying’s voice trembled as she clearly realized something.

Chi Ting slowly looked around, his eyes passing over every player. “The main problem is that we can’t confirm who this unlucky person is yet. Maybe it is you, you, or you… But the only thing that is certain is that this player has previously entered this instance and died. They just don’t know it yet.”

There was silence all around him. Judging from the faces of the players, it was obvious that they couldn’t accept this statement for a while.

“Of course, there are no traces of the harm I caused to the ghost because the current situation is that one of us is possessed by a ghost.”

Chi Ting finished saying such a thought-provoking speech. He clapped his hands and smiled. He was obviously very happy to have found the answer to the question that had been bothering him for a long time. “Yes, in this way, all problems can finally be explained!”

“……”

The players looked at the curve of Chi Ting’s mouth. They clearly felt the joys and sorrows of human beings who couldn’t understand each other.

It did make sense, but it didn’t seem to be a conclusion that could make people smile?

Could they actually be dead?!